According to Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Ukrainian president, Ukraine needs 1,000 155-mm howitzers, 300 multiple launch rocket systems, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles, and 1,000 drones from the West in order to “finish the conflict” and “push Russia out of Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian army has sustained severe casualties in the Donbas in recent weeks, while Russian forces, who have also incurred substantial losses, are gradually gaining ground.
At a Ukraine Contact Group meeting on June 16 in Brussels, an unnamed senior official from the U.S. Department of Defense stated, “We hear what [Kyiv] is saying. In fact, talks are still going on; military representatives from 50 different nations have been coordinating the transfer of weaponry to Kiev. However, despite the fact that the United States has given up part of its own military readiness to aid Ukraine, as recently noted by Christine Wormuth, Ukrainian officials aren’t quite content. Why would that be?
According to Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic, an Antonov cargo jet carrying 11.5 tons of Serbian armaments to Bangladesh crashed late on July 16 in northern Greece.
The accident involving the Antonov An-12, which was being flown by a Ukrainian airline, claimed the lives of all eight crew members.
Stefanovic acknowledged that the guns were being provided by a private Serbian armaments factory named Valir, and that the plane’s owner is a Ukrainian business. He said that the weapons transfer had been arranged with the Bangladeshi Defense Ministry “in compliance with international regulations” and that the jet was carrying mines and illumination mortar bombs.
But I beg to differ, if Ukraine is exporting weapons to Bangladesh, then why need to keep asking for more weapons unless its for the exporting to other countries to make extra bucks. If that’s the case, then they had excess weapons with them which they are not using strategically to their losing war even with all the investment the countries are putting to support Ukraine.
It is certain that the crew that perished were Ukrainian. None of them were Serbian Stefanovic. Denys Bohdanovytch, general director of Meridian, the Ukrainian freight airline that was flying the aircraft, all of them.
According to Athens News Agency, names of the eight crew members were given to the police and that the jet was headed to Bangladesh.
Filippos Anastasiadis, the mayor of the impacted town of Pangeo, had earlier claimed that the jet had been carrying “hazardous stuff,” most likely explosives.
The cargo plane, which was flying from Serbia to Jordan on July 16, reportedly attempted to make an emergency landing at the neighboring Kavala airport but was unable to do so.
